


Antebellum

by Marayanna



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Emotional Hurt, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Family Feels, Family Issues, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I always wondered about how it must have felt, Light Angst, Spoilers for Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, hating Lucretia after everything they've been through together, this fic is a dive into this particular rabbit hole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:20:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22211671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marayanna/pseuds/Marayanna
Summary: He sees her, sometimes, in the newspapers and such, the esteemed Director of the Bureau overlooking the repairs after the Hunger’s attack. She looks thinner than he remembers her, he notices mildly, and then gets angry at himself for noticing. Gets angry at the pang of worry he feels at that moment.Madame Director can rot in hell for all he cares, but he worries about their little Lucy.
Relationships: Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), The Director | Lucretia & Everyone, The Director | Lucretia & IPRE Crew | Starblaster Crew, The Director | Lucretia & Taako
Comments: 6
Kudos: 73





	Antebellum

**Author's Note:**

> [ Vienna Teng - Antebellum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYb-cNOxe8w)

She fucking took everything from him.

His sister. His crew. His purpose.

Herself.

Taako doesn’t plan to forgive Lucretia. To him, it’s not some “we just need time” bullshit that all the others try to convince themselves with. Lucretia made her decision and all of them took a blow because of it, and now they have no choice but to stitch themselves back together from the broken pieces. But Lucretia isn’t part of that picture anymore. Doesn’t have the right to be.

He misses her sometimes, and that makes his rage flare even stronger. It’s like there are two Lucretias in his mind, one a middle-aged Madame Director who he came to respect but who ultimately betrayed him, and the other, young and laughing with him on the deck of the Starblaster, his little sister who he would give up his life for. And he hates this new Lucretia even more because of that, because it feels like it’s her fault that his sister is gone now, like she took her away from them.

They all try to start new lives, now that there’s actually a world to start new lives in. They go their own ways, is what some people say and it only shows how little the world actually understands the Seven Birds. There’s no way they would ever fully go their own ways, forever tethered to each other by their past and everything they achieved together. They meet, they call, they share stories and updates, they are a constant presence in each other lives.

Lucretia doesn’t call. She doesn’t show up to their meetings and there are no stories from her. Nobody comments on that and Taako’s not sure anybody ever invites her. He’s not sure he cares enough to ask.

He sees her, sometimes, in the newspapers and such, the esteemed Director of Bureau overlooking the repairs after the Hunger’s attack. She looks thinner than he remembers her, he notices mildly, and then gets angry at himself for noticing. Gets angry at the pang of worry he feels at that moment.

Madame Director could rot in hell for all he cares, but he worries about their little Lucy.

It’s not an easy thing, it turns out, to stop loving someone.

They go about their lives and with time Taako’s anger dulls to a simmer, but never stops completely. Years go by and there’s so much to do, so many things to see and learn and experience, and he’s angry, yes, but he’s also busy _living_. And as he has more and more things to care about, he stops thinking about Lucretia at all.

It comes as a shock, then, when she dies.

He’s asleep with Kravitz one night, when the reaper bolts up suddenly and jumps off the bed, making Taako scramble for his wand, lifetime of being on the run making him ready to fight at the moment’s notice. But nobody is attacking them, and before Taako’s brain can fully catch up, Kravitz is already stepping through the rift, closing it behind him.

Being Death’s husband comes with its own oddities, Taako is well aware. But he stays awake, wand in hand, because this is weird, even for Kravitz.

It’s barely a few minutes later when the rift opens again and Kravitz is back. But he looks weighted down, older, if being older was possible for a being such as him.

He sits down on the bed, carefully takes Taako’s hand.

“Lucretia passed away from a heart attack” he says softly and Taako feels like his brain got stuck somehow, like the words Taako hears aren’t the words Kravitz says at all. “I’m sorry, I… It was sudden. I would let you know earlier if I had known myself, but sometimes even for me it’s…” his voice becomes thinner and thinner until it disappears entirely, and he looks at Taako with concern, waiting for his reaction.

And all that Taako can think about is how small and thin Lucretia looked in that damned newspaper.  
  
  


Life goes on after that, and he doesn’t stop hating her. There are some expectations that he should, he can feel it from the other members of his crew, but Taako calls bullshit on that. Being dead does not mean that your mistakes get magically unmade. She still took everything from him and she still got exactly what she deserved. A hero in the world’s eyes, shunned by her family to the very end for the mistakes she made while saving them. There’s some kind of poetic bittersweetness in that and Taako is sure that Lucretia, as a writer, would appreciate it.

But suddenly, during their meetings her name starts coming up. One hundred years’ worth of funny stories and weird anecdotes are shared during meals, little “Do you remember when she…” or “Oh, if she saw that she would…”. Thirty years after they saved the world, thirty years of Lucretia being dead to them, suddenly after her actual death she becomes one of them again.

Maybe it’s easier to love a ghost. Shaping it up to be a person they once have known.

Taako hates that fucking ghost.

He grits his teeth when he hears the stories, holds his wine glass in a white-knuckled grip when the others laugh cheerfully. He snaps at them when they try to make him join them, much to the disapproving looks around him. Lucretia is gone, has been gone even before she died, and he didn’t put all this effort to heal a hole she left behind just to have it torn open again, is what he wants to say. She was a self-centered bastard and he won’t waste his breath on her anymore, is what he actually says, and to him these two sentences sound the same.  
  
  
  


_Many lifetimes before that, there was a night on the Starblaster._

Taako is in the kitchen, carefully not thinking about anything at all. He lets his hands do the work he knows by heart, focusing on the soft touch of the flour on his fingers, the sweet smell of vanilla in the air.

Carefully not thinking about Lup, and how this year she died for the first time.

There’s a hand on his shoulder suddenly, and he jerks, looks over. It’s Lucretia, her pajamas always a little bit too big and her eyes always a little bit too sharp.

They stare at each other for a few heartbeats, and even though both of them are brilliant with words they respect each other too much to waste a breath when there is nothing to say, nothing that would have any meaning at all.

Lucretia breaks the eye contact first, glances at the rest of the kitchen, at the pastries he’s making, at the pots and eggshells strewn everywhere. She nods to herself as if agreeing to something, and then pulls up her sleeves and slips beside him. The ingredients she picks are for the pastries’ filling, and Taako stares at her for a few seconds, unsure. Lucretia is no professional chef, but she cooked with him and Lup enough times to know what to do, more or less. He can let her help, he decides finally and goes back to his own work.

They stay like this for a long, long time.

It’s much later, when their third cake is in the oven and the previous ones cool off on the kitchen counters. They sit on the couch, both under one blanket, shoulders touching and hot cocoa burning their lips. It’s only then that Taako says: “She’s been all I had my whole life”, and Lucretia says, “I know”.

But Taako only shakes his head at that. “No, Lucy, you really don’t. I, hell, I didn’t give a shit, you know? What happened to all the bastards around me. As long as I got what I wanted, as long as I was the one who won, I never cared. But Lup cared. She always cared”

“Taako. You’ve spent last year doing nothing else but helping Magnus build bunkers for people to hide in when the Hunger comes. It looks like caring to me, just a little bit” her voice is carefully flat, but that’s her way of being sassy so he rolls his eyes and elbows her, gently enough to not spill any cocoa. 

“Shut up, doofus, I’ve learned that from her. My attention is fucking expensive, I’ll have you know, but I learned to spare it for the fools around me if they are tolerable enough. But…” he takes a sip from his cup, unsure how to continue “I never had to do it without her. I never had to do _anything_ without her. And now, now she’s…” his voice wavers, so he stops.

He’s scared and lost and hurt, and he knows Lucretia can tell. He doesn’t know how he feels about it. It’s the first time in his life anybody other than his sister sees him like this. It’s the first time in his life he _allows_ anybody other than his sister to see him like this.

“She’ll be back” she says, and he wants to scoff because he knows this, of course he does. But hearing it said so plainly calms him down, just a little bit. His sister will return in a few months when they all reset and all Taako has to do is hold on until then. Knowing that there is a timeline is a comforting thing, somehow.

And yet.

“I know she’ll be back” he wants to sound cocky but what he sounds is petulant and he hates it, oh how much he hates it. “But the problem is, she’s not here _now._ She’s not here to jab at me to be less of an asshole or hit me until I feel like doing anything. I’m not. Fuck. I’m not sure I know how to do it without her”

Lucretia shifts to look at him, but Taako refuses to meet her eyes, stubbornly looks into his half-empy cup instead. “You have us,” she says it like what she means is _you idiot_ , and he freezes. It’s both the most obvious and the most audacious thing to say at once, somehow. “We can jab at you and hit you. More than usual, I mean. I’m under no illusion that you’ll stop being an asshole, though”

Taako snorts weakly in lieu of responding, and Lucretia continues.

“We’re saving the world from an eldritch abomination, Taako. If that doesn’t make people grow closer then I honestly have no idea what does. And Lup is special, she’ll always be, but when she’s not here… Well. We are. We’re not your twins, obviously. But we could definitely be your siblings” she shifts under the blanket, leans her head on his shoulder. “And I think deep down you know that, too. Considering that we are tolerable enough to spend your, ah, expensive attention on”

Taako doesn’t move. He stares ahead, at the dark room and even darker night outside, his arm warm where Lucretia leans on it. It took them both a long time to touch somebody like this, to allow somebody to touch them like this, and deep inside his heart Taako marvels at that.

The night is calm and the only sound is the low hum of the bond engine that became a steady heartbeat of their lives. There are stars outside but they’ll pale soon, once the morning comes and the sky changes color to one that is different from their homeworld’s, but one they got used to anyway.

There are Davenport’s maps thrown around on the rickety table made by Magnus. There are Barry’s books and vials laid meticulously on the shelf, right next to Merle’s plant everybody is kind of afraid of. There are, finally, scorch marks on the wall, where Lup went overboard in her experiments just a couple of weeks ago.

There’s the rich smell of pastries he and Lucretia made together.

“Yeah”, he breathes out, at long last, and finally, _finally_ allows himself to relax. He feels warm and safe, surrounded by a family he has chosen to trust. “Yeah”


End file.
